Sunday, November 08, 2009

Praying Mantis

This photo may be blurry (damn iPhone camera), but it's the only proof I have that last weekend I was the cool mom at the playground in the park, doing a little entomological interpretation for the kiddies. I was moving the mantis from the play equipment, where it was in danger of being stepped on, to a bush. It was pretty cooperative critter, and I was thrilled that a tiny little girl was the most eager to hold it.

Most of the mantids I see around here are light green, so it was fun to find a brown one.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I did this with Geeky Girl's soccer team the other day. It was rather distressing that the other moms actually squealed while their daughters were quite fascinated. As the mantis was crawling up my leg, one girl said, "Are you freaked out?" I, of course, said, "No, I think it's really cool." That seemed to give them enough permission to also think it was cool.

JustThinking said...

Cousin-This reminds me a bit of the time we found a frog in my backyard as children, my brothers accidentaly drowned it, and you asked to disect it. Not the same thing of course, but you are always more interested in the learning aspect than the eww factor.